AIDS/HIV : Will America reflect world rates?

America can no longer consider itself immune from the growing worldwide threat of AIDS.

As shown by The Clarion-Ledger article Wednesday, "HIV: 'Nobody's exempt'," black women comprise 70 percent of new HIV cases in the United States, and about 25 percent of new cases in the Magnolia State. According to the state Department of Health, as of Dec. 1, 2003, Mississippi had 7,387 residents with HIV, and 2,314 are women.

Now the Centers for Disease Control estimates that the 40,000 new HIV infections per year have continued unabated since the 1990s, with women increasingly spreading the disease. Nearly 1 million Americans have the AIDS virus; up to 280,000 have HIV and don't know it; and the nation's ability to keep others from becoming infected lags.

Further, according to the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank, the HIV epidemic is growing more rapidly in women globally. In sub-Saharan Africa, women comprise 57 percent of people living with the virus. In all, 39.4 million people are infected.

Internationally, the Bush administration's pro-abstinence stance and requiring foreign countries only to buy brand-name drugs, usually American, to receive aid aren't working.

Nationally, more education, and prevention, are required.